With all the different social media platforms out there it can get very confusing as to which platforms are best for your business. While it may seem that you should keep up with ALL the different social spaces, it’s important to take a look at each specific platform and determine if it’s aligned toward your business and marketing strategy, or not. Not every platform is going to yield wow-factor results for every industry and customer base.

Here’s a look at some of the most popular social media platforms today and how you can get the most out of each one:

Facebook

Best for: Any size company in any industry.

What to post: A variety of content including written posts, videos, and photos. You can also take advantage of ads and setting up events for your business to draw in a local, or targeted audience.

When to post: Ideally, you want to post daily to your Facebook business page. Many claim that posts between 1pm and 3pm get the most engagement Also, you can take advantage of Facebook ads, a now 13 billion-dollar industry, to help target an audience outside of your immediate followers.

converse-facebook-powerful-post

What makes this a power post? There’s a simple, yet bold image that catches your eye and the post connects with their customers and audience saying, “Our love for you is year round.” And let’s not forget the nearly 90k likes and 7k shares!

Strategies: Help your customers get to see what’s behind the curtain by sharing actual photos of your business, team or any events. Consider a live video or uploading a video to help connect to your audience in a more authentic way to balance the use of advertisements. Remember, many people are on Facebook to connect with friends and family rather than just brands, so it’s the personal approach you are going for here.

Twitter

Best for: Any size company in any industry.

What to post: You can interact with other brands, join in on industry-related conversations to highlight your expertise, and interact directly with your customers through your Tweets.

When to post: Because Twitter is meant to be a “what’s happening right now” platform, it means that you’ll need to post frequently and get engagement on those posts in order to be seen in the fast-moving feed. The most popular time to Tweet is 12 pm to 3 pm, but we have a strategy if you’re feeling overwhelmed as to when to post to this rapid-fire platform.

Strategies: If you’re new to Twitter, or trying to figure out your ideal posting frequency, you can try a tool like Tweroid that will help you understand the best time to post according to your audience. Additionally, you’ll want to do your research on which hashtags, essentially the keywords of social media, are most relevant to your industry and business in order to capture a larger audience on your Tweets.

Instagram

Best for: Industries related to food, fashion, lifestyle, and luxury.

What to post: Photos and other visual content like short video snippets.

When to post: Typically one post per day is good for Instagram, and you want to schedule it for those times when your target audience would have the time for some social media scrolling, like lunchtime or late in the evening.

Strategies: Don’t forget that Instagram is one of the platforms, like Twitter, that uses hashtags to categorize content. You’ll want to make sure you have relevant hashtags ready to use for each post to help get even more engagement from a larger audience. While you may see other companies using endless hashtags, we suggest keeping it short and sweet with a few, high-quality hashtags.

Pinterest

Best for: Companies who interact with millennials, a predominantly female audience, as well as industries related to food, fashion, travel, and DIY tips.

What to post: Photos and other great visual content like infographics or before/after shots that appeal to your target audience.

When to post: It’s recommended to post at least once per day and shooting to post during the peak times, which are nights and weekends.

Strategies: Each Pin that you create has a space for a caption. This caption will be most effective if you’re using industry relevant keywords, so it’s important to spend time not just on the visual, but the content that goes with each Pin. Additionally, you can incorporate Pin buttons onto your website which will allow viewers to share ideas on their own Pinterest boards, thus sharing your content organically.

Now, there are MANY more platforms that we could share here, but the ones we’ve mentioned above are some of the biggest players in the social media space where consumers are hanging out. What’s most important is that your company focuses on a social media strategy that best suits your specific industry and the customers that you primarily work with. Spreading yourself too thin on social media, or not utilizing the best platforms for your industry, can lead to a major social media rut, and no one wants that!

Max your social media presence! Create a new digital marketing strategy and brand your social media profiles. Make sure you give us a call today at 508-652-0012.